Hoping for Replacement
by ainokitsune
Summary: Flashfic. Dean needs Sam.


_Flashfic. Written in about an hour, for what it's worth._**  
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><p><strong>Hoping for Replacement<strong>

**Days**

-zero-

Sam's eyes fly open.

He stares into the mirror, and trembles. His whole body is racked with shivers. His face is the same as it always was—same eyes, same nose, same hair, same bones. He knows the shape of his own skull and he leans into the door and pulls at the skin under his eyes, pulls at it as if it would peel away from his face. As if he could. When he lets go it springs back, soft and elastic. Smooth. Too smooth. He pushes his hair away from his forehead and shoves his knuckles into his eyes until he see stars. The flash and memory of angels, falling. Lightning and screams. He plants his too-small, stubby-fingered hands on either side of the mirror and leans until his forehead touches the smooth smooth glass. It's cold, and he huffs a breath and clouds the glass, until he can't see his own face. Until he can't see himself, four years old, staring into his own eyes.

In another room, the baby cries.

-four-

John and Mary are fighting again. Sam huddles against the door and pushes his hands over his ears. He knows he shouldn't. He's got no reason to give a good goddamn what the pair of them do. They deserve each other, he thinks wildly, spiteful and full of some kind of bitter rage whose source he can't even understand. The last time…the last time he saw them…he _loves_ his parents. He does.

But.

But they won't stop screaming at each other. Sam flinches, hard, at the sound of something breaking. A plate, maybe. Mary's voice rises, strident, until the wall shakes. A door slams, huge and vibrating through everything, right through Sam's bones. He shudders. He doesn't mean to, but he does anyway.

_The body's too small,_ he thinks. _Too small for this, this, this stress._

And in the other room, the baby is crying. Sam realizes he's been hearing it for a while, but in the sudden stillness after the slam of the door, it pierces. Cuts right through him.

He doesn't know where Mary is. Thinks maybe she followed her husband's example, stormed off in another direction. Sam takes a deep, trembling breath. Wonders if a four-year-old body has a center to _find._ Gets shakily to his feet, pushes a hand through his hair (too long, not long enough) and follows the noise of the baby.

The room is well-lit, done up in powder blue with pictures of trucks and a mobile of stars and moons and other baby-appropriate items. Sam creeps to the door. The noise in here is deafening. He puts his hands over his ears again, crosses the smooth wooden floor to the yellow crib. Tiny fists wave behind wide wooden slats. The baby's face is pink, his eyes screwed up, his hair a tuft of near-white.

Sam takes a deep breath. He slides one hand through the bars and rests it on his brother's small, fragile chest.

"Hey," he says, "Hey Dean. It's okay now. I'm here. It's okay."

-thirteen-

He sits up sharply in the dark and can't hear his brother. No one's in the room with him. He can't remember where they are. What city, what state? What motel? Where's the car? _What fucking year is it?_

His lungs won't expand enough. He sucks in air and his ribs stop short. He can't breathe right—nothing's right. Nothing's where it's supposed to be. Where's Dean? Why did he leave? Why is—where is—

And he hears the noises of his own breath. High and tight, too high for a grown man. He squeezes the bedclothes with fingers that have never held a weapon. The sheets are soft. Too soft for a motel. They smell like him. Like _Sam._ They're _his_ sheets.

He shuts his eyes.

Dean hasn't left.

In the morning, Mary finds him sleeping in the baby's room. On the floor, clutching his pillow, without even a blanket.

-one hundred-

He sits on the blanket and watches Dean play. Dean. His _little brother._ Dean. The thought, the reality, sticks in Sam's head. Is awkward and alien and wrong. Is his brother even in there? Does he _know_? Can he—will he ever come back? Be Sam's brother the way he was before? Will he be _Dean?_ Or will he be something—someone—else?

Mary's standing in the doorway, dishtowel in hand. "Sam," she says, "Sammy. Come and have lunch."

Sam doesn't take his eyes from his brother. He's small. He's so small.

"Can I eat it in here?" he asks.

-three hundred-

He wants to ask Mary. Ask her if she's got a mark on her heart. If that's why…if the angels…if John…

If he cares. Because Sam honestly can't tell if John gives a damn about Mary. About his kids. He's around, of course. When he wants to be. And he doesn't drink, much, when he is. But Sam knows he _does_ drink. When he doesn't come home, when he doesn't call. When he misses work. Sam knows.

Mary knows too. But Sam's not about to broach the subject with her. He can just imagine how _that_ conversation would go.

He can't ask her about hunting, either. He's checked most of the house, for evidence of salt, devil's traps, sachets of herbs and other things. He spent an afternoon running fingers over and under the windowsills, feeling for carvings, for some _evidence._ He crept out of bed at two in the morning and hunted for weapons, for knives or guns or, hell, a fucking _blowgun_, _something_, tucked away in some corner, some place no one, not even John, would think to search.

He hasn't found anything. Not one grain of salt out of place.

He folds his arms across his too-skinny chest and watches Dean—baby Dean—toddle a few steps across the lawn, and with impossibly pudgy hands try to pick up a ball that's bigger than his head. He nearly overbalances and staggers forward, and Sam has to resist a sudden, overpowering urge to run to him, sweep him up, keep him from ever falling. From so much as bloodying his nose.

He clenches his fists and keeps his arms crossed. And Dean doesn't fall. He picks up the ball, and he laughs.

Sam looks away.

**Years**

-four-

Sam's eight, and his big brother is four.

Dean's smart. He knows better than to get between J—between their parents, when John gets home. By this point, he knows. But some things haven't changed and Sam still sees the urge he has, even when everything else is so violently skewed as to be unrecognizable, to fix things. To fix _them_, his parents, his family. To fix everything.

Sam's not having that for him. So when John bangs through the door and Mary's shoulders stiffen, and Dean's eyes go wide and he starts to move in their direction, Sam grabs him by the arm and nearly frog marches him through the door. Outside. Dean knows better than to make any noise. Yanks away when they're out, though, and stands on the lawn breathing hard. When Mary's voice ricochets out the window and stabs into the soft earth around them, Sam jerks his head sharply and starts walking. A few minutes later, Dean falls into step behind him.

"Can't go too far," he mutters. "We'll get in trouble. Mom'll get…she'll be mad."

Sam snorts, and glances back. "C'mon, work those stubby little legs," he scolds, and grins when Dean's scowl deepens. Behind them, World War three is erupting. He grabs his brother's hand when they reach the road, and digs into his pocket. Rattles his change.

"C'mon," he says, "We can get candy."

Dean stares at him. Says, "Mom'll get mad."

"No she won't. 'Cuz she's not gonna know, right?"

Dean bites his lip. "I don't—"

"Dean." Sam leans forward, looks his brother straight in the eye. "_She's not gonna know_."

Dean doesn't say anything, but he doesn't pull away, either.

-six-

John is gone. Sam's pretty fucking relieved.

"_Get out!_" Mary's scream still reverberates in his skull. _"Get out, you fucking bastard!"_

Now the house is quiet. Sam sits on the edge of his bed and watches Dean doodle on some paper Sam managed to swipe from the school's stores. Mary would kick his ass if she found out he'd been stealing, but she's never going to know.

He gets up and pads over to his brother. Dean's working busily, silently. He's been quiet for a long time.

"What're you workin' on, kiddo?" Sam asks softly, kneeling and settling back on his heels. Dean doesn't look up, so Sam peers over his shoulder.

Whatever it is, it's a mess. Sam bites his lip. Thinks he can pick out Mary, and himself, and their house. There's too many other bits of things to make sense out of though. Eyes and mouths, long fingers, maybe. Hands. When he catches the edge of something that looks a lot like wings, Sam sucks in a breath and nearly inhales his lower lip. He's on his feet and across the room before he realizes it, back pressed to the wall.

He can hear his breath, taste the adrenaline suddenly rocketing through his system. He squeezes his hands into fists. Shuts his eyes until the tears aren't threatening anymore.

"Dean?" he whispers, when he feels like he can trust his voice again. "Dean are you—is it…Dean?"

But Dean doesn't look up. And Sam bites his lip and goes on biting it until it bleeds.

-twelve-

_And of course,_ Sam thinks bitterly. _Of course it's this way._

He shoves his mother aside and grabs Dean's shoulders as his brother gasps and his eyes roll up. At least it's not a seizure. Sam doesn't know what he'd do, if it was a seizure. But this is something else. Dean clawing at the floor, limbs contorting, face drawn into a rictus. Eyes wide and white, irises gone.

Sam has a pretty good idea what his brother's seeing.

"What's the matter with him?" Mary's gasping, somewhere close by, and Sam rounds on her, teeth bared, and sees her step back, hands fluttering uselessly. Sam forces his face into something sane, human. Something bordering on normal. In his arms, Dean makes wet grating noises and thin animal cries. Sam feels something inside himself shudder.

"Get some—some water," he tells Mary, forcing his voice not to growl, or snarl. She already thinks he's half-feral, he knows. It's fucked up but he can't help it, can't care about school or girls or, or fucking _pogs _or whatever _kids his age_ are supposed to be into. And his brother's gone still in his arm and his head's lolling to the side and that's all that matters now. That's everything.

Sam wipes a hand over Dean's forehead. His palm comes away shiny with sweat. A little saliva drools from Dean's mouth, but that's all. No blood. His eyes flutter and Sam takes a breath. Breathes out.

Mary comes in with a glass of water, and Sam manages to find a smile for her.

-fourteen-

Sam gets picked up for kicking the shit out of some asshole who punched his girlfriend in the middle of the bar, and when Mary finally posts bail Sam's got nothing for Dean but a tired smile and attempted one-armed hug. But Dean backs away, stares at him in horror (and Sam doesn't want to know what he's seeing, or thinks he's seeing, or what he's _remembering_) , and flees to his room.

Mary stands in the middle of the living room (the perfect suburban living room) and folds her arms. Says, "You're eighteen now, Sam."

He hasn't been _Sammy_ in a long time.

"I want you out of this house."

Her voice doesn't waver, but her eyes do. Gaze breaking away and flickering to the wall. The old photos, the ones she never took down. All of them together. A long, long time ago.

Sam says, "What will you do when I'm not here? When Dean…" and he doesn't mean it to be cruel. He doesn't. But he stands there in the doorway, lanky and shaggy and dirty and bruised, and his quiet words drive Mary's eyes straight down to her feet.

Sam's almost relieved at the sound of something heavy hitting the floor upstairs. He's at the staircase in a flash, hauling himself up the bannister three steps at a time, shouting, "Dean! _Dean_!" over the sounds of his brother screaming

-sixteen-

Sam brushes aside Dean's bangs. They're too long. He never cut his hair short. Never so much as thought about it, as far as Sam can tell.

"It was never supposed to be this way," he murmurs. Dean's head turns toward him, but he doesn't open his eyes.

Sam keeps his hand where it is, and uses the other to scrub across his own skull. He finally knuckled under and chopped it off when he hit twenty. Not spiked, but short enough that no one can use it against him in a fight. He looks away from Dean's bloodless face, skitters his eyes over the walls.

Dean never threw them away, those few early crayon drawings, and now they hang in the corners, waxy red and blue and black. Sam can still see the edges of wings, the memory of all-devouring light. He can see them now from this distance and understand them a little better.

He turns back to his brother, who mumbles something breathless and empty.

"I don't think you were ever supposed to remember," Sam says, tucking thin strands of hair behind Dean's ears. "You weren't supposed to remember anything. It was meant to be your punishment."

He looks up again, this time at the window, at the blazing sunlight outside.

"And this is supposed to be mine."

-twenty-

Dean just about walks out into traffic one day and Mary has some kind of fucking breakdown or something in the middle of the kitchen, so Sam takes Dean home with him for a while.

"I don't know why I did it," Dean mumbles, staring down into his coffee like it has all the answers. Sam leans on the counter and levels his best big-brother stare at him. Dean catches it, flushes, and looks away.

"Quit _staring_, you giant freak."

Sam's lips quirk. He can't help it. Something warm is nesting just behind his ribs. This whole thing is fucked up beyond all belief, but Dean's here, with him. Where he belongs.

"You get any more urges to go play in traffic, you let me know okay?" He quirks an eyebrow and Dean nearly snarls at him, and Sam feels a full grin explode across his face.

"What the hell's so funny?" Dean demands, slamming a hand on the table, and Sam shrugs.

"I don't know, man. I guess you just bring it out in me."

Dean gapes at him for a moment, before shutting his mouth with an audible _click_.

-the end-

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><p><em>Notes: I'm kind of ashamed of myself for writing this. But it was bugging me and I wrote 2300 words in an hour, so clearly it needed to be done. Maybe someday I'll use it to write something a bit more extensive. I dunno.<em>

_It derives from the idea that Sam, thanks to his time in Hell, is now technically older than Dean. I started thinking about ways this might be expressed, and there are all those fics out there where they get reincarnated or whatever, so…yeah. I guess Godstiel or someone is responsible for their predicament. Maybe._


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